Where house found a home
Dirty, Dirty House Club, a weekly Thursday-night gathering celebrating house music, and Akbar, the 8-year-old Silver Lake bar, were made for each other.
The promoters had a following of high-energy dance enthusiasts and the DJ to fuel them, Tony Powell. The venue had a new Moroccan-themed dance room designed by Akbar co-owner Peter Alexander.
Shake. Stir. Shake some more.
“This particular vibe is calling me,” regular Gary Jones says on a recent Thursday as Powell weaves a mix of house with a soul bent. “I’m just a little bit crazy about the club and the music. It is my church.
“But it’s not for the faint of heart.”
A night at Dirty, Dirty House Club at Akbar begins as patrons enter the unpretentious bar on Sunset and are greeted by a sign that reads “Dirty, Dirty House.” Halfway to the back room, attendees pay a $4 cover and receive a stamp on the wrist that allows them to freely move through the curtain that separates the two worlds.
By 11:15, the dance floor has been transformed into a sweaty, steamy playground for gay and straight dancers of all ages and ethnicities.
Even for those on the sidelines, Powell’s beats prove too inviting; they stand in the lounge area, shaking and gyrating as they watch the lights and limbs out on the floor.
It was those lights that caught the eye of Dirty, Dirty House co-promoter Fred Warren, a Montreal native who grew up on house music. “I heard a Stevie Wonder track on the dance floor and I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ There were all these bright lights flashing off the mirror ball,” he recalls.
That was music to the ears of his Dirty, Dirty House partner Darryl Jones, who suspected Akbar might be the club’s destination when the night went looking to move from its home at the Parlour Club three months ago. “Something new needed to happen in Silver Lake and these guys had a new dance floor,” promoter Jones says. “It was a perfect fit.”
Warren says the melding of the two was seamless from Day 1. “Opening night, all our crowd came back, mixed in with all of Akbar’s crowd,” he says. “It was like putting two very strong forces together.”
A Silver Lake haunt that co-owners Alexander and Scott Craig opened as a hangout for their friends, Akbar expanded to include a dance floor in April of last year. The bar offered dancing Friday and Saturday nights only.
But because of their long relationship with Jones, whom Alexander calls part of the family, the pair decided to open up the venue for Dirty, Dirty House, which had been around since late 2003. “We like the fact that we have our own Akbar Fridays and Saturdays and stuff. We like to keep our identity,” Alexander says. “So this was kind of a stretch for us, and we did it because we knew Darryl.”
They have been as pleased with the results as Jones and Warren. “It’s a really cool mixed crowd at Dirty House,” Alexander says.
Adds Craig: “And it’s nice because it’s a different crowd than our usual crowd. So that’s what’s nice for us. It’s exposed a whole new crowd of people to us that don’t normally come here.”
Powell spins a set at a pace designed to keep dancers on the floor, and fans respond by staying until the wee hours.
“They are dancers. They just go out and start dancing right away,” Craig says of the crowd. “And we have to kick them out at 2 in the morning -- they don’t want to leave.”
Says Warren: “I can’t think of anybody that would make me dance or sweat on the dance floor like Tony.”
Taking a necessary break from the dance floor to greet friends old and new, Gary Jones surveys the scene. “Look at the crowd; they’re hot,” he says. “The thing I love about Silver Lake is it’s gay, it’s straight, a lot of girls come here, let their hair down and shake it up.
“And it’s the vibe. If you’re here and you like the music, we’re already friends.”
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Steve Baltin can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.
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Dirty, Dirty House Club
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Where: Akbar, 4356 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles
When: 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursdays
Price: $4
Info: (323) 665-6810